A major nightmare for any household is opening the refrigerator door and finding it dead. That means at least a week to find a repairman and get it fixed—if you're lucky. Sometimes it means replacing the fridge altogether, leaving the family without one for weeks while figuring out how to finance a replacement.
Major, major emergency
A dead refrigerator is a housewife's worst nightmare. Raw meats and fish in the freezer can spoil without immediate action. Cooked food and leftovers stored in the fridge are also at risk. Meanwhile, water from melting ice can drip onto the kitchen floor, creating a safety hazard for family members. So, what should you do?
Seek assistance from family and friends who might have space in their freezers for a few days. Borrow a couple of iceboxes—use one exclusively for raw food. Keep salad vegetables and fruits in a separate cooler, away from raw meats to avoid cross-contamination.
Share with the needy
Rather than letting leftovers spoil, reheat or recycle them and distribute with cooked rice to the homeless. You can increase the volume of leftover menudo by adding broth, shell macaroni, and diced vegetables. Adding milk can enhance the flavor and nutritional value. Filipinos like macaroni soup with creamy broth.
Preserving meats
Raw pork and beef cuts can be seasoned and preserved as tocino or tapa. Use ready mixes like Mama Sita’s for convenience. If the weather is good, dry the seasoned meats in the sun for a couple of hours to intensify the flavor.
Homemade sardines
Fish such as tamban, galunggong, tawilis, and bangus can be turned into sardines, which will keep for a week or more. Clean, gut, and slice the bangus, leaving the scales on. Cut off the heads of tamban, galunggong, and tawilis, then pat them dry with kitchen towels. Layer the fish in a thick pot with salt, whole black pepper, bay leaves, and crushed garlic. Drizzle with olive oil or any available vegetable oil until the fish is covered. Top with a few hot chili peppers and pour water to almost level with the fish. Cover tightly and cook over medium heat until it simmers, then lower the heat and cook for at least an hour. Keep the sardines covered with oil to extend their shelf life.
Other fish dishes:
Sarciado
My grandma, who had no freezer, salted fish and fried the pieces well so they keep for a day or two, when she simmers them in sauce. Sarciado sauce is easy. Saute sliced onions and tomatoes with fried garlic. Season with salt and pepper and hot siling labuyo if desired. If there is leftover sarciado sauce, she adds a little water, then stirs in a beaten egg. Voila! A new dish called Cardillo.
Escabeche
Another dish using fried fish is escabeche, the original sweet-and-sour viand without banana ketchup. This sauce is made by mixing vinegar, sugar, minced ginger, fried garlic and onions. Some cooks thicken with cornstarch. Others prefer a thin, watery sauce. The fried fish absorbs the vinegary cooking liquid, ending up tasting like pickles.
Pickled Vegetables
Vegetables in the busted refrigerator should be washed and dried well. Cucumbers should be sliced and kept immersed in vinegar, sugar, salt, crushed black pepper and chili pepper. Other veggies that can be treated this way are grated green papaya, blanched okra and sayote.
Iceboxes and precautionary measures
Use iceboxes to save perishable food, but avoid cross-contamination by keeping raw meats separate from fruits, vegetables, and cooked food. Smart households also keep repairmen’s contact numbers handy, often stuck on the refrigerator door—you never know when you’ll need them.
